This invention relates to culinary untensils, and more particularly to a food serving utensil having a broad blade suitable for slicing and serving cakes, pies and similar culinary items and incorporating a thumb-operated scraper within the handle to assist in pushing items from the surface of the blade as they are served.
It is considered to be appropriate, even elegant, in our culture to slice or cut some kinds of delicate dessert foods, such as cakes and pies, and serve them in unitary pieces intact and not crumbled or broken. In order to do so, it is often necessary to use a serving utensil having a broad blade or surface, such as a spatula, under the piece of food to completely support the bottom of the piece while it is being transferred to a serving plate. Such foods also often tend to stick to the serving utensil, thus requiring some additional utensil or device to scrape or push the piece gently off the serving utensil. Traditionally, a knife, fork, or some other second utensil has been used for this purpose, which requires the use of both of a person's hands to transfer a piece of such food gently onto a serving plate while keeping it neat and intact.
There have been some advances in serving utensils that allow the use of only one hand for serving pieces of cakes, pies, and the like. One such device includes a scraper positioned at the rear of the broad blade with a stem extending rearwardly from the scraper into the handle where it can be pushed forward with the user's thumb. A spring in the handle pulls the scraper back to the rear of the blade after the piece of cake or pie is removed. This concept is workable, but several problems remain that limit its acceptance and usefulness. For example, the slide and spring assembly in the handle collects food bits and residue, which is very difficult, if not impossible, to clean. Also, this prior art device has insufficient scraper travel to push especially sticky foods off the blade, and the scraper does not always scrape the blade surface effectively.